I Am So Homesick Now For Someplace I Will Never Be
by CattyAndChin
Summary: Its the summer of 2010, everyone has changed, not everyone for the better, can they find their way back to what they love? Sorry for the crappy summary. D/S,D/B,N/V,C/B. Reviews please! Warning: mature content miscarriage, swearing
1. One Dan

**One. Dan.**

The train was picking up speed, pulling out of New Haven, and all that Dan could feel was the most unbelievable sense of relief. Yale, it had turned out, was not all it was cracked up to be. 9 months ago, he had arrived there, bags in hand. He had been fresh, excited and ready to face what he thought would be a stimulating and new academic and social life. He had been looking forward to a new sort of life and a new sort of people, but he had been sorely disappointed. Dan now knew that it was true what they said, high school never did end. Dan wished that it was Blair Waldorf, instead of him that had gone to Yale, she would have loved it. It was populated by people exactly like her, unbelievably rich, snobbish and painfully hierarchical, only with a variety of accents. Dan had made it through Freshers Week*, clinging to a group of bewildered scholarship students, he had hoped that his classes, at least would be all he had hoped. How wrong could he have been, it seemed to Dan that new ideas were scoffed at as unpolished; studying merely consisted of learning the opinions of other people and writing to a dull, prescripted style, rather than actually thinking for himself. He had taken his fathers advice and stuck it out for a year, but enough was enough. He was coming home.

He hadn't really kept in touch with anyone in New York, he called his Dad and Jenny every so often, Vanessa called him once a month and that was about it. He and Serena had tried to keep in touch, but it just made everything harder. He kept up with everyone else through the most reliable source he knew – Gossip Girl.

But it was hard for Dan. It was hard for him to hear Vanessa talk about she and Nate's problems, which so often mirrored the ones he and Serena had once had that it physically hurt him. It was hard to talk to Jenny, she was so vivacious, full of life, she was developing a line for TopShop on the side of her schoolwork, and was going to go to London this summer to complete it, they would only have a few days together, he hated to admit it, but he resented her because her dreams were coming true and his were dead in the water. He remembered joking, threes Christmas's ago that his life had peaked. This had turned out to be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. What was especially hard for Dan was to see Serena; she was everywhere, page 6, American Apparel ads, Gossip Girl, magazine covers and, most of all, his dreams.

A woman sat down next to Dan, taking out a magazine, they both glanced at each other, before double taking.

"Dan? Is that you? What the fuck happened?"

It was Lexie, and Dan briefly noted that she was still hot. He knew he looked different. He _was_ different. He was thinner now. He shaved a little less and drank a whole lot more. In New York, he never drank, but being away from home had changed him. He no longer had the "puppy dog" look in his eyes, and although he judged people a lot less now, he also cared less.

Dan shrugged, he knew how self-righteous Lexie could be, and he didn't want to be lectured by someone else about failing to make it at Yale.

"Life's what's fucking happened" she muttered "What're you doing here? I've never seen you out the city."

Dan hesitated "I was at Yale . . . "he wasn't planning on telling Lexie any more, but she had opened her magazine, was flipping through. The aggressive energy that had once surrounded here had dissipated, he felt he could tell her ". . . but the years over and I don't think I'm going back."

He readied himself for the shocked gasp, the "no!" but what Lexie said surprised him. It had been a long time since anyone had surprised Dan.

"Shouldn't have gone in the first place. You, Dan Humphrey, belong in the city and with a certain blonde. I saw that a year and half ago, and its still the same today."

Dan smiled, it wasn't a big smile, but it was something for a guy who had spent the past six months brooding, drinking and sleeping with random girls. Lexies' bluntness was like a window to a former life.

"You're right about the first part at least."

Lexies turned away from her magazine to give him a shrewd look "I'm right about all of it, I take it you and Serena are still doing what you do best then?"

Dan remembered that he was speaking to Aaron Roses' best friend and that she must know about him and Serena's' on-again-off-again drama.

"Not really, we haven't spoken in months."

"Miss her?" Lexie asked, flipping through her magazine.

"It's not like she hasn't been around" said Dan, indicating, the GAP ad on the page opposite to the article Lexie was scanning, Serena's frozen smile splayed across the page.

Lexie chuckled – "yeah, I saw that, she's pretty unavoidable these days. Didn't I say those pictures of Aaron's looked like GAP ad?"

"How is Aaron?" Dan didn't ask out of any interest or with any enthusiasm, but because it was what the old Dan Humphrey would have done, to make conversation, to be polite. Suddenly, Dan wanted to feel like himself again.

Without looking up from her article, Lexie waggled the fingers of her left hand at Dan; the diamonds on her fourth finger caught the light and played with it across the back of her hand. "Engaged" she said, without any enthusiasm, "And in Bruges" she added "We live there now. I'm only here to visit my parents."

"I never thought you'd get married."

"I'm not. Yet. But you know what Aarons like, he pretends to be all liberal but he's as traditional as you deep down. I love him though so . . ." she trailed off absent-mindedly. She looked at something non-existent in the middle distance for a moment before pulling herself back to the conversation, " . . . so here I am."

"Here you are" said Dan softly, looking at her intently.

Lexie looked up, then started, "Shit. At my stop. It was great catching up with you Dan, remember what I told you."

And she was gone as quickly as she had appeared, leaving Dan alone with his thoughts.


	2. Two Serena

**Two. Serena.**

Serena hated bridesmaid's dresses; she especially hated her mother's bad taste in them. As she looked at herself in this lilac monstrosity, she began to feel like Katherine Heigl in _27 Dresses_ Jenny let out a whimper next to her as she sighted a particularly hideous bow detail on the hem of the identical dress she was wearing.

"Does Lily like practical jokes by any chance?" she hissed across to Serena.

Serena shook her head forlornly, Andrew, her half-brother was sitting across the room, eyeing a lilac bow tie nervously. He had not yet been exposed to a Lily van der Woodsen wedding, and given the chance; Serena knew that he would skip the whole affair to smoke weed and play bass with his buddies. Andrew wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box, and when she first met him, Serena was amazed that NYU had accepted him as a music major. But, now, she had to admit that the guy was a musical genius whatever way you sliced it. The song he had written about meeting his real parents for the first time – "Hello Again" – was going to be the song for Lily and Rufus' first dance. Serena had been amazed that a pasty, silent, dreadlocked stoner could express such emotions, but then again, Humphrey men made a habit of surprising her.

Serena felt a prickling on the back of her shoulder, and, turning was surprised by a Humphrey man.

"Dan!" Jenny screamed, rushing over to him as he stood in the doorway and throwing herself on to him in a flurry of hugs and kisses about his face, "I've missed you so much!"

Dan murmured a greeting to her, his eyes still fixed on Serena. He looked different, a lot older, a little less wise, a lot more cynical. But she still couldn't help herself but think of him as "her Dan." It was crazy that some scruffy college kid could make an internationally recognised, and loved, spokes model lost for words, but it was the truth. For the first time since she had last thought of him, Serena had no idea how she felt, so she did what she always did in situations like this, she went to the bathroom.

Hitching the many poofy layers of netting up around her waist, Serena sat down on the toilet. Silence. She didn't need to pee. She needed to figure this out. A dozen feet away, he was there, in their spare bedroom. He was here. He still existed.

"Shit."

She stood up and paced the tiny space, the clack of her heels sounding against the cool marble of the bathroom floor.

"Serena, darling!" Lily's languid voice called through the door, "The fitters' finished with Jenny, and she'll do you next, could you come out sweetie?"

Serena struggled with herself for a moment; "Just gimme a sec," she called back.

She could go up and say hi and act like they were still friends. No, that would be unbelievably awkward, besides she didn't trust her acting skills. She could slap him. No, he hadn't done anything to her, she was only mad because she didn't know if she still loved him or not. She could ignore him until forced to acknowledge his presence. Perfect. Well, not perfect, but the best course of action she could think of at this precise moment.

She flushed the unused toilet and ran the taps for a second to keep up the pretence and opened the door.


	3. Three Blair

**Three. Blair.**

Blair felt her phone go off in her pocket and knew it was Chuck. She was sitting in the spare bedroom, and having already been fitted for her hideous dress (which in typical Blair Waldorf styling she had made look good, only just, but she had done it nonetheless) she was watching the awkward social scene being played out before her with bemusement. It was the final fitting before the van der Humphrey wedding in two days time, and Blair had known or a long time that it was going to be a disaster. What she hadn't known was that Chuck would ask her to be his official date; she wondered if that meant that _they_ were official now or not, they'd been being Chuck and Blair for a few months now, but becoming "Chuck and Blair?" That was a scary thought, it was exhilarating one though.

She checked her cell phone. It was Chuck. Somehow she always knew when he texted her. Her phone seemed to vibrate a little louder, and her heart skipped a little, it was the sort of intuition that told her she was in love. As if she needed telling!

The text read **"B there soon."** Typical Chuck, no "I love you," no "I miss you," not even a kiss. There would be time enough for that later.

She leant across to Lily, who was perched on the edge of the bed with Rufus, watching Serena willing the ground to swallow her up with a joyfully oblivious tear in her eye.

"Chucks almost here." She said, and Lily started back to her, "Oh good! I want him to try on his suit one last time, the stylist seemed to know Chuck and she figured out something special for him. She said it was right up his street."

A black suit with sparkling lilac piping with matching sparkling lilac bow tie hanging on the door caught Blair's eye. She smiled. It was so Chuck, she felt like she was looking at a little bit of him. She got up to take a closer look, but bumped into Dan who was standing, stiff and awkward just by the door after all the initial greetings. He hadn't even taken his coat off.

"Cabbage patch." She said.

Dan glared at her wordlessly, and Blair almost took a step back. Since when did Dan Humphrey glare? And since when did he not talk?

The strength of his glower had been incredible. Blair was lost for words, her mood had taken a nose dive and she felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

Dan raised an eyebrow as she opened and closed her mouth helplessly. She was outraged. She pulled herself together.

"Learned to pout your way through Yale Humphrey?"

"Learned to pout your way in yet?"

Shit. Dan Humphrey was humiliating her, granted, no-one else was listening, but she was still mortified, and hurt. She would never have thought that Dan would say something malicious like that, it was safe to say he'd hit a nerve. Blair was amazed to feel tears springing to her eyes, she muttered an "excuse me" and pushed her way out of the room.

Breathing deeply and looking skywards to hold the tears back, she couldn't help but remember the last time that she had seen him.

No! She mustn't think of it, bad enough for her to have been friends with him, but to sleep with him? Just after he and Serena had finally called it quits? Blair hadn't believed she could sink quite so low, and she had vowed to never speak of it again. It seemed that he had done the same. If he even remembered.

She turned as she heard the bing of the elevator. Chuck came out, holding a bouquet of lilacs for Lily. She was so proud of him; he was coping so well with the entire situation. Blinking back her tears, she rushed across to him. He stopped, she looked up to him, pacing her hand on the velvet of his jacket and he knotted his hands on the small of her back.

The kissed, quietly, subtly. In the beginning, things had always been loud, passionate and impossible to ignore, their love for each other, while still avid, could exist without tearing them apart now. They were happy. Wordlessly they broke apart, and, smiling to each other they went to see Chucks suit together.


	4. Four Dan

**Four. Dan.**

Dan was thirsty. But he really didn't want to go to the kitchen to get a drink of water. It was 3am. God, why did he settle for the only room without an en-suite?

There were eight people living in the apartment, himself, Rufus, Lily, Jenny, Erik, Chuck, Andrew and Serena. The chances of him running into one of them were high, but he was particularly worried about running into one of them in particular.

He didn't think he could face Serena. She didn't have any reason to hate him any more than before. At least not one she knew about. He'd written a story about that night with Blair "31.12.09"* but his tutor at college had told him it was a load of crap. He'd kept though with all his other stories, filed chronologically, like some sick diary of his love life.

He decided that he couldn't live like this; he was going to be here for a few months, possibly more, so if he needed a drink of water, he needed a drink of water.

Switching the light on, he got up and tiptoed through to the kitchen, he was just taking out a glass from the cupboard when he heard a female voice behind him.

"Very stealth."

And there she was, his worst nightmare and only dream all rolled into won. She was sitting at the breakfast bar, all done up with heavy eye make-up, a tight black dress and killer heels; she was eating a pint of ice cream and had obviously only just got back.

"I didn't know there was a dress code." He told her, looking her up and down he felt the familiar swoop in his stomach. Shit.

"Do you ever?" she asked coldly. She hadn't meant for that to come out quite so harsh. She saw Dan's face harden and immediately wished the last five seconds would magically erase themselves

"I didn't mean . . ." she started, but he gave her a look which she recognised, he knew, he didn't take offence.

"Got any more ice-cream?"

Serena smiled, the room felt airless for Dan. She pulled up a carrier bag from under the counter; he could tell it was full of the stuff.

"My new vice" she giggled "it's better than coke right?"

"Right." He said, taking out a spoon and walking over "Where were you tonight anyway?"

"Ugh. Don't even ask, some party honouring someone too far up their own ass to see the party."

He laughed, this Serena wasn't exactly the one he'd left behind, but she'd grown balls, maybe he liked this one even better than the old one.

There was a pregnant pause, Serena looked across to him.

"Dan. . ."

"Don't."

She looked a little hurt for a moment, but blinked it back and it was like that little moment had never happened.

"So . . . Yale . . . was it everything you'd hoped it would be?" she teased, "I heard you topped Deans' List. Congrats."

"Not really" he said, "I don't know if I'll go back."

She took this piece of information in for a moment. "I heard Rufus and my mom talking about it but I guess I never thought it was true. Were you really that unhappy?"

Dan looked away; he didn't want to look at her. "Pretty much."

She felt her arms around his shoulders, she head resting on the back of his shoulder. "I'm sorry to hear that" she said.

He was frozen. She smelt the same. Her skin felt the same, and her hair tickled the inside of his elbow. His body took him back years, it felt like nothing had changed. His mind knew differently.

"Serena. . ."

"No, Dan, can we just sit like this for a moment. I've missed you."

He obliged. He felt he owed it to her.

She didn't lie it was only a moment, but she looked a whole lot better when she sat up again.

They sat in silence for a while, eating their ice-cream, she took a morsel and dabbed it on his nose when he wasn't expecting it, he responded by flicking a chocolate chip at her cheek.

It almost felt normal.

"We'd better get to bed, it's almost four," she said "and we've got the rehearsal tomorrow. I can't wait to see you in that bow tie."

Dan chuckled, "God I know, I'm going to look like Chuck."

"'Night" she said and kissed him on the cheek, she lingered for a moment as they both felt what had just passed between them and softly she kissed his cheek again, resting her lips against his face for almost a minute and her hand on his chest before going to her bedroom.

Dan sat there for twenty minutes more, silently and completely still; trying to figure out what he was going to do next.


	5. Five Vanessa

**Five. Vanessa.**

In general, Vanessa didn't cry much (even though she seemed to have been doing a lot of it recently), and when she did she never did it in front of other people, which was how she found herself in the billiards room of the Vanderbilt mansion, breathing heavily and blinking hard to try and keep the tears back. She decided to turn her despair into anger. _Maureen was a bitch._ How dare she manipulate Vanessa into telling her about "her condition" (as she had, rather delicately, put it) and then share that with Nate's family. It was her and Nate's business, they hadn't old anyone yet, and she had wanted to tell Dan first, instead the news had been shared with a room of cold blue bloods. Maureen had been all smiles, cups of herbal tea and sympathy when she had invited her to her apartment the week before for a "little chat." Vanessa had always liked Maureen the best of Nate's frigid, unfeeling family, but now she hated her the most.

She had managed to gather herself together, she knotted her hands against her stomach, she could hear Nate and his grandfather arguing, not enough to hear specific words but she could tell t was their voices and she could tell that they were shouting. She hadn't planned on things turning out this way. She hadn't even been sure if she wanted children or not. But when she tried to get rid of the baby, she found that she couldn't. It was a piece of her and Nate and their love, already forming inside her and she didn't want to let that go. She was shocked to realise that she was excited about having Nate's child. At .

And telling Nate, that had been a production, she had had it planned out, she would tell him after dinner in their apartment, she had a whole speech planned out about it. But she felt too sick to wait so she just blurted out "I'm pregnant" one day when stepped through the door from class and stood there like a stupid mute until after he had walked straight back out the door again. He came back an hour later with a strange assortment of items, bread, flowers and a dummy. He had kissed her and, seeing the little yellow dummy (Nate thought it was the most unisex colour) she realised that she loved him and that he wasn't lying when he said he wanted the baby. At this point she had burst into hysterical tears. It had taken Nate two hours to calm her down enough for her to stutter out "I love you."

Her thoughts were interrupted when Nate stormed into the room, grabbed her wrist and muttered "We're leaving. Now."

Wordlessly they stormed through the drawing room where an assortment of Nates relatives sat, his grandfather rather red in the face and out to their beat up old 1969 Cadillac Eldorado (Nate said he'd always wanted one) in front of the house. When they got in the car, Nate sat for a moment, then hit the steering wheel with such suddenness and force that Vanessa jumped, scared.

He put his face in his hands.

"They want me to leave you," his voice would have sounded controlled to someone who didn't know him, but Vanessa could here the rage just under the surface. She'd never seen him like this before, and she couldn't deny it she was scared. "They don't want you to have an abortion. They don't want me to drop out of school and marry you. They don't want us to have a child out of wedlock. They want me to leave you."

"Wh-what?"

"I won't do it." He said, his voice thick with emotion, his knuckles gripped the steering wheel so hard they went white. "They took away my family. They're not taking you away."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Neither am I!" he screamed it.

"Pull over." Vanessa said calmly, she needed to talk to him.

He did as she said.

He turned to her, girls at school had always talking about how beautiful he was, the last year had hardened this. He was no longer pretty, now he looked harder, darker, more masculine. Vanessa liked it. He now looked like the person she'd always known he was.

"I can get a job. We can do this." He told her forcefully.

Vanessa nodded to him, they didn't pay rent, after all Archibald finances had been sorted out after the court case, after everything had been sold, Nates father had spent 6 months in prison, he and Nates mom now had a small house in Connecticut, The tiny amount of money left over from this had bought Nate and Vanessa a two bed apartment in Brooklyn and an ancient Cadillac.

She hesitated "Are you doing this because you want to do this with me, or because you want to do the opposite of what they want."

He had calmed down a bit. "I want to do this with you, rebelling is just an added bonus."

They both laughed and soon found that they couldn't stop. They kissed, still laughing, and drove on.


	6. Six Blair

**Six. Blair.**

At about the same time as Vanessa and Nate were driving along the freeway, '80s glam rock blaring, singing along manically and attracting all manner of looks from the people in the cars around them, Blair was waking up next to Chuck, who was already sitting up, reading a newspaper. She smiled. He hated people to see him sleep. She kissed his hand and sat up and straddled him, resting her head on his shoulder. It was completely platonic, she didn't want to turn him on, and he could tell from the way she moved, she just wanted to be as close as possible to him.

"Rehearsal today," he muttered, almost to himself.

"I wish we could stay here all day though." She said, smiling, she could feel his smile pressing into her cheek as well.

"Why don't we?"

She pulled back to look at him, "And say what? _Oh sorry Lily, Chuck and I just wanted to stay in bed today, we'll see you at the wedding."_

He laughed in spite of himself. "No." he kissed her on the lips, "We could just say that we got food poisoning last night. Bad sushi."

She giggled and leant in to kiss him, and felt a hormonal surge rush through her. He felt her shift and leant over to kiss her shoulder, caressing the back of her neck and her shoulder.

"No, they'd know, you forget that they know what you're like." She told him, and sat back, she was too practical to get caught up in Chuck this morning

"Did you see Humphrey and Serena at the fitting, never seen two people act more awkward" he asked her.

She immediately tensed and Chuck looked at her quizzically. She realised what she'd done and immediately tried to salvage the situations.

"God, I know, he's even worse than before, all silent and brooding."

She got up quickly – "I'm gonna take a shower."

Chuck nodded but he was still looking at her like he was trying to figure something out. She looked back as she opened the door; he seemed to struggle with something for a second, but then shook his head very finally to himself and picked his newspaper up again.

Closing the door behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief. That had been close. She reached her hand out to pick out a shampoo and was surprised to see that it was shaking.

She was suddenly angry. At herself for doing something so stupid, Chuck might never forgive her if he found out, Serena definitely wouldn't. At Dan, for being complicit in her sin, although, she couldn't deny it, she had enjoyed their time together. At Serena, for making Dan so sad that he would do that with her.

She didn't know how she felt; it was a scary though for Blair Cornelia Waldorf, she didn't know what she wanted.

So she picked out a shampoo and got in the shower.


	7. Seven Serena

**Seven. Serena.**

The rehearsal dinner was going unbelievably slowly, and all Serena wanted to do was leave. It wasn't like she was even going to speak, Lily had prevented that, citing the Debutante Ball as her reason. Serena couldn't argue with that. She wouldn't have had much to say anyway.

But Andrew as best man? He was baked, Serena could tell, the problem was Rufus and Lily couldn't, they were welling up with tears watching him stumble through his speech while trying not to get distracted by his fingernails or the gold braid at the edge of the tablecloth. What was worse was that his speech was frequently punctuated by "dude" and "like" and "totally awesome!"

She glanced across to Dan; he was gazing into his empty scotch glass miserably. She was surprised to see him drinking, even more surprised to see that he held liquor well. It wasn't what she'd expected, but then again, Dan didn't do anything she expected him to anymore. She let her mind drift back to the previous night. They hadn't spoken since but she had been thrown off balance by the subtle shift that had taken place, it was easier to be openly hostile towards someone than _this_, whatever _this_ was. She thought back to the way they used to be, smiling a little to herself, it was bittersweet for her, to think of it. With hindsight she could tell that it was the only time she'd ever really been happy, or felt good about herself. She suddenly felt dizzy, a little sick, thankfully Andrew finished his speech, and she leant across to tell her mother that she was going out to take a breath of air.

Getting up, she saw Dan get up to, Blair looked to her quizzically, but she nodded to tell her she was fine, she saw Blair's eyes following, not her but Dan, and there was a sort of tenderness about Blair's expression that Serena didn't think she'd ever seen before.

Suddenly she felt like the air was too close, too hot, so she turned away and walked as steadily as she could to the door.

Sitting on the hotel steps, she tried to breathe deeply, and pressed her cold hands against her hot face. Now she was outside she felt much better, but she was freezing in her flimsy dress, she wished she'd remembered . . .

Her cardigan flopped down next to her and was followed by Dan, who wordlessly took a glass of ice and rolled it across her flushed forehead and cheeks.

"Th-thanks." She said shakily, she had been feeling much more clear-headed until he had come out.

He shrugged, took one of the ice cubes out of the glass and crushed it between his teeth, old habits die hard.

His silence disconcerted her; she remembered Blair's expression and paranoia descended on her, whispering half-formed fears in her ear.

"Blair's been weird lately." She said, immediately regretting it when he didn't react, "I don't know, have you spoken to her . . .recently?" she finished lamely.

Now, last year, Dan wouldn't have told Serena immediately, he would've talked it over with Blair, and procrastinated, and prepared Serena for what she was about to hear. Dan knew now that she would find out either way and it was better for her to hear it from him. Besides, although he liked Blair, the honest truth was that he liked Serena more.

"New Years' Eve" he said, "We slept together."

It took a moment for the meaning of these words to hit Serena. She felt winded.

"We broke up on Christmas." She said matter-of-factly.

He was looking at his shoes, the cars, the people walking by, anywhere but at her.

"We broke up on Christmas." She repeated. "_We broke up on Christmas_."

It was starting to irritate him, "I know." He said, a little too harshly. "It didn't have anything to do with you." He added sheepishly.

"I would say that my best friend and first love fucking five days after we broke up has quite a lot to do with me actually." Her voice was rising, becoming a little more hysterical; pedestrians were looking over, then away from the kitchen sink drama being played out before them.

He moved to stand up, they weren't getting anywhere, he turned and saw Blair, frozen, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, Serena saw his sudden stillness and turned to look at her as well.

She seemed to have forgotten about Dan, she strode over to Blair and stood in front of her for a second before slapping and scratching at her face, screaming words Blair couldn't make out at her.

Serena felt herself being pulled off of Blair by Dan, despite the situation and how much she hated him in that moment, she couldn't help but feel a jolt in her midriff as she felt his arms around hers arms and waist.

Blair had lost all composure too now, "You left him when he needed you! You broke his heart!" she screamed.

"That doesn't make what you did okay!" Serena was straining, trying to get back at Blair.

"No!" A tear slipped down her cheek, she buried her face in her hands for a moment and felt more composed when she started again. "But Chuck had left me. Which still doesn't make it okay. But I was alone and he was alone and you were probably off at some edgy, fashion house party in Milan or Paris or London with some hot, stupid foreign guy and we were both alone."

Serena stopped straining, Dan let go. She realised there was some truth in what Blair was saying, but she couldn't bear for her to be here.

"Leave."

Thankfully, Blair obliged, walking shakily straight into a cab that a woman in a trench coat had just left.

Serena turned to Dan, she saw a glimpse of the old him, he was sorry for what he had done, she could tell by the set of his eyebrows and how he was holding his shoulders.

There was a moment's silence. They looked at each other. There was a sensitivity to her face that he hadn't seen for a long time.

"I love you." She said it without really knowing why, she only said it because it was the truth and she didn't want to lie to him. "But I really wish I didn't right now."


	8. Eight Dan

**Eight. Dan.**

Vanessa liked late night coffee shops, so did Dan as a matter of fact, which was probably why she'd got him to meet her here. At 10 o'clock at night.

Dan's head was spinning, Blair had tried to call him a couple of times, he had tried to call Serena a few times, Chuck had punched him in the face after the rehearsal dinner. His face felt tender, but he didn't. He was angry at all of them, he was thinking about it, having a rant in his head.

"Blair – for sleeping with me when I was drunk, for keeping it a secret, for being a real person inside.

Chuck – for punching me, for being angry with me for sleeping with Blair when they weren't even together, for trying to date rape Jenny, for making me feel bad about what I did.

Serena – for leaving me, for breaking my heart, for loving me."

Vanessa came in, with Nate, they looked happy, Nate's arm was around Vanessa's shoulders, he was twirling the keys to that stupid car with his other. Vanessa was holding the hand that was over her shoulder, with her other arm around the small of his back. They looked solid. That was what love should look like.

He stood up, Vanessa hugged him tight, Nate grabbed his hand, shook it in en ecstatic, over-excited way, like how a 5 year old might shake his hand, then laughed out loud at the formality of the gesture, pulling Dan into a hug.

They all sat down.

"We've got news" Vanessa said, she glanced to Nate, they interlocked fingers under the table, Dan could tell, he and Serena used to do it for support and closeness between courses at big society dinners. "We – Nate and I – we're having a baby."

They looked expectantly to him. He blinked.

"A baby." He repeated dumbly.

"That's it!" Vanessa squealed, Dan had never seen her like this. He was angry at her suddenly, for being happy.

"How're you going to do it? I know you both work a bit, but you've both got school, and babies are expensive. You're both nineteen, you live above a shop that sells bongs, you eat take-out every night. Baby's don't eat take-out y'know."

He saw them both freeze; Vanessa was the first to recover.

"NYU's got a day-care programme."

Dan laughed, he knew he was being an ass, but he couldn't help himself, once he got started like this, he couldn't stop. "Well, I'm sorry then, I didn't know NYU had a day-care centre, that's all your problems solved."

At that moment all three of their phones went off, only Vanessa and Nate checked theirs, Vanessa using the distraction to try and hide the tear that had slipped over her cheek as Dan had spoken.

Nate looked up slowly.

"You and . . . Blair?"

Dan shrugged, got up and left the café, throwing down a five dollar bill to cover his coffee as he went, looking back he saw Vanessa lean onto Nate's shoulder and cry as he held her.


	9. Nine 6 Months Ago Dan

**Nine. 6 Months Ago. Dan.**

Christmas Day.

Dan hadn't gone home for Christmas, he and Rufus had fought over Yale, and it would hurt too much to be back in the city. He'd stayed in New Haven, eating Chinese food and brooding.

He was outside now, the cold air bit at him, and his heavy heart was immune to the children playing outside and the couples taking walks together. He was going to meet Serena. She had called earlier and said they needed to talk, he had obliged, so she had driven up to New Haven. It had taken her hours, Serena was a terrible driver.

They met in the park. They didn't kiss, or touch in any way when they started walking in pace together. They didn't even say hello.

Wordlessly they sat down on a bench together; Dan took out a cigarette and lit it, smoking quietly.

"You shouldn't smoke." she said absent-mindedly.

"You shouldn't cheat." He said in a tone that mirrored hers.

She turned to him, "I didn't mean to hurt you but I'm not sorry I did it." She took a deep breath.

He didn't answer, he looked straight ahead, the light was fading.

"How did we get here?" she asked him thickly. "Two years ago today, exactly two years ago we were so . . ." she trailed off. "Why did it have to come to this?"

"We were different people then." He said simply

"I don't know who you are anymore." She told him.

"You haven't taken the time to get to know me." He looked away; it was his secret, his emasculating secret that the women he loved wouldn't make time for him.

"You're not easy to get to know."

"Some people aren't."

There was a long pause.

He turned to her. "Try." He said "And I'll forgive anything. Try and I'm yours." It was the hardest thing he'd ever said, he had put himself out there for her, he was completely exposed, he felt naked, and terrified.

"I can't."

She got up and walked away from him.

As he watched her get in her car and drive away, he breathed what he knew she meant. "Won't."

New Years Eve.

Dan was at a party, quite well on his way to getting absolutely wasted when a familiar figure sat down next to him on the threadbare sofa that he was lounging on. This college party was possibly the last place he'd ever expected to see Blair Waldorf.

"Humphrey."

"Waldorf."

She glanced across to the open bottle of vodka he was holding, took it from him and took a long gulp. She wiped her mouth with the back of her arm.

Dan just looked at her stunned. "What are you doing here?"

"Ugh. Dear Gawd, this party the Deans having, my dad and Roman are here and the Dean and my dad go _way_ back, I think he was hoping he could get me a transfer for next year. Anyway, Roman was being totally insufferable so I Ieft, and went to the first frat party I could find to get trashed at and maybe sleep with someone. Here I am."

Dan nodded. "Chuck?"

"Christmas Day, I go over to his house to see him, imagine my surprise when I find the Latvian maid there, doing a little more than shining his shoes."

"You're over then."

"Pretty much, Serena told me about you and her split up. I'm sorry." Her voice was tender, and he could here she really was sorry. A strange thing was happening; sharing their misery was pulling them together, befriending them.

He looked away.

Her voice became even more human, thick and caring, "they really fucked us over didn't they?"

He looked back to her and in doing so their noses grazed. Their hearts were bursting with pain, the two fatalities in romantic car crashes.

She reached up and stroked his cheek; he pushed her hair back from her face. Dan hadn't felt this connected with someone in a long time.

She closed the gap between them and pushed her lips against his, it wasn't a kiss exactly, but it wasn't not a kiss either.

They pulled back. "Have you got a flat?"

He nodded. "A bed-sit just off campus."

They stood up simultaneously and left the roaring house party that neither of them had been a part of and walked silently to Dan's flat. It wasn't an awkward silence. It was the understanding that they both needed this. It was full comprehension of what they were about to do.

They sat next to each other on Dan's sofa, each with a tumbler full of vodka, drinking, talking. Blair realised she still hadn't taken off her coat. As she stood up to remove it, Dan stood as well and helped her slide it off, he hung it on the doorknob which was within arms reach.

She reached up and pulled his head down towards her, she was in her bare feet and the height difference was pretty huge. They kissed, slowly at first, but as they continued with more and more passion.

They manoeuvred their way over to his tiny bed and stopped suddenly. This moment was the opportunity, for either of them to chicken out, they looked to each other. There were no objections from either party.

So they went ahead.


	10. Ten Blair

**Ten. Blair.**

She was sitting across the dining room table from Chuck in her apartment. Cyrus and Eleanor were out for dinner. No-one expected him back at the van der Humphrey apartment after what had happened at the rehearsal dinner. She was holding an ice pack to his right hand.

"So let me get this straight." Chuck said, he was acting like he didn't care, but Blair could tell she had hurt him. "You slept with him because you felt sorry for him. Sympathy sex." Chuck looked pleased with himself, like his answer was the most natural, perfect well-rounded thing in the world, totally, undeniably right, like a well done sum.

Blair stopped herself from shouting, how many times did she have to explain it? "No exactly. We were in the same place."

"Exactly!" he said, "Yale."

She looked at him for a moment and then realised, he wasn't joking . . . oh god. "Emotionally."

Chuck looked puzzled, "You mean, it meant something to you."

His face fell a bit, though he tried o disguise it and Blair felt guilty because she couldn't deny it.

"It did."

Pause.

Then.

"Do you love him?" he asked abruptly.

Blair paused. "I don't love him."

"You only ever really loved me. You never felt anything for him." Chuck seemed to be reassuring himself, Blair wanted to leave him to believe that but in that moment, it seemed crueller not to tell him the truth.

"You want too much!" she cried out and buried her head in her hands; her voice became muffled through her fingers and tears. "I didn't love hum, but how could I have felt nothing for him? I only want you now – isn't that enough?"

She wept noisily into her hands for several moments, but when she looked up, Chuck was gone, and the elevator doors were closing.

Blair felt complete devastation; she sat silently for a moment, allowing the pain of Chucks dismissal wash over her. She got up and wandered the house, ending up in the kitchen. The house was so quiet. All she could here was the quiet hum of all the houses machinery. She opened the fridge, finding that she was hungry and saw a cherry tart that Dorota had left, taking it out she ate small bites straight of the serving platter. She was soon stuffing her face with massive spoonfuls, tears rolling down her cheeks, almost gagging on the massive clumps of sweet pastry and cherry conserve. It hurt to swallow, she could feel the wet mixture of tears and mucus and food on her face and suddenly felt disgusting. Blair ran upstairs to her bathroom, and did something she hadn't done in a long time. She fell asleep on the bathroom floor, still wearing the dress she had worn to the rehearsal diner.


	11. Eleven Vanessa

**Eleven. Vanessa.**

"We don't have to go." She heard him call from the kitchen, he was eating breakfast, but Vanessa wasn't hungry, the smell of eggs was actually making her feel sick.

"Yes we do." She called back.

Silence. He knew she was right.

Jenny had made Vanessa the dress she was wearing to the wedding. It was lemon yellow with embossed spots, thick straps that crossed over her back and an empire line that hid her tiny baby bump. She was wearing matching flats, her feet and ankles had swollen slightly recently and she couldn't bear to wear heels.

She was smoothing the material over bump nervously over and over again. She really didn't want to go to this wedding, she barely knew anyone, other than the Humphreys and Dan was mad at her for being pregnant. She could have coped with him judging her, but dismissing her?

She didn't hear Nate coming in behind her, he wasn't wearing his tie yet, Nate hated wearing ties, he said they felt suffocating. He put his arms around her waist, swaying her slightly and kissed the space before her hairline behind her ear.

"You sure you don't want anything to eat." He muttered.

She placed a hand to her stomach, "Oh no." she felt a little ill thinking about it. "I hope Lily's got light food for the lunch."

Nate chuckled. "A van der Woodsen wedding? Don't hold your breath!"

They stood still like that for a moment, Vanessa leant her head back to rest on Nate's shoulder.

"We should go soon." He whispered, she nodded and turned around; fixing the tie that had been hanging over the top of the mirror around his neck. She undid his top two buttons and loosened the tie.

"Bearable?"

He smiled and nodded. She went over to the dresser and brushed her hair out before fastening it into a loose bun, letting a few strands escape the bobble. Nate picked up a long gold pendant with a tiny watch on the end that set off her cinnamon coloured skin and fastened it around her neck, it reached down to her navel. She picked up a pair of gold stud earrings and put them in and started on her make-up while Nate put his watch on and fiddled with it, watching her all the time.

He always watched her as she got ready to go out, in the beginning she had found it disconcerting but it was just a part of their routine now, and she felt strange when he wasn't there.

When they were both ready, they went out to the car. It had been sitting in the sun, and the heat inside was almost oppressive, they didn't have air conditioning, but Nate opened the windows and the cold air streaming in cleared Vanessa's head.

"So Dan and Blair, what about that, huh?" Nate asked her, "Gossip Girl wrote, like, a whole page about what an odd pairing they were."

"I don't know if they are all that odd." She said.

"I know what you mean, I never would've expected it, but now it's happened, I understand y'know?"

She nodded. "She said we were an odd couple after all."

They both laughed, Gossip Girl's opinion of them as a couple was something of an inside joke between the two of them, nothing felt more natural and the idea that everyone else was confused by their love for each other exhilarated them.

"He's lonely." She told Nate.

"I know." He sighed. "I feel bad that I didn't keep in better touch with him, we used to be friends after all, but everything with my family . . ." he trailed off.

She snuggled into his shoulder. "He not lonely because of you."

"I know."

They both knew why Dan had changed, and they were both mad at Serena for igniting that change.

"Blair seemed okay though, the last time I saw her." Vanessa said. "Have you spoken to Chuck?"

"I tried, when I found out about Dan and Blair, but his phone was switched off."

Vanessa looked up suddenly, raising an eyebrow.

"I know, crazy right?"

They laughed.

"We're lucky not to be mixed up in all of them" he told her.

She nodded, closing her eyes and breathing in the fresh, clean smell that she had come to associate with him.

"I love you."

"I love you too."


	12. Twelve Dan

**Twelve. Dan.**

The wedding was at St. Patrick's cathedral. This single fact made Dan mad. He hadn't spoken to his dad properly since he'd got back to the city, and he was avoiding it. If he could think of one word to describe Rufus now, he'd know what it would be.

Sell-out.

Rufus, who had made them eat brown paper bag lunches, who had worked so hard to send he and Jenny to a good school, who had based his previous lifestyle on hard work and never having more than he needed, was getting married with hundreds of strangers watching in a $3,500 suit, that his bride had bought him.

Dan knew what the middle-aged, UES gossips were whispering these days, that Rufus Humphrey was a kept man, that Lily was his meal ticket.

Dan couldn't help but agree with them.

He'd forgone the lilac bow tie; the fitter had agreed that a lilac tie was really more his thing. The expensive suit felt alien against his skin, when he wasn't expecting it, someone, probably a wedding planner, came over and dusted his face with powder. He was so shocked he froze before going to the bathroom to wipe it off.

Rufus and Lily were getting ready in their own rooms and the rest of the bridal party were getting ready in one big vestry together. Chuck was slumped in one corner, a glass of scotch in his hand, Dan slouched in another, in a similar position. Andrew had excused himself and was standing at a side door of the church, smoking a joint. Erik and Jenny were sat I the corner, trying to do something to make Jenny's dress look better. Blair and Serena were stood at opposite make-up stations, fiddling with random objects. They had both finished getting ready, but if the admitted that they might have to try and talk to each other.

Somewhere deep down, Dan didn't know how to feel about the mess he'd got them all into. He wasn't really sure whose fault it was, it wasn't like he'd forced Blair into anything, but then again, Blair hadn't forced him into anything either, and Serena, and Chuck, they'd treated he and Blair like Kleenex, even if they did claim to "love" them.

He looked across to Serena, she looked bad in the dress, but it was so bad, so unnatural, so wrong that it was actually pretty good looking. That didn't make sense, but neither did anything where Serena was concerned.

He still loved her; he was starting to wish that he'd told her when she'd told him she still loved him the other day. The more time passed, the harder he was finding it to imagine doing it.

He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice that she was actually walking towards him, the dress was short on her and her legs were fantastically long; he'd forgotten how long her legs were.

"Come with me." It wasn't a question, it was an order, and the look on her face was so foreign that Dan couldn't find it in himself to refuse; glancing back as he and Serena went out into the corridor, he saw Blair, she was looking at Chuck with a look he'd seen on her once before. It was the look she'd given him on New Years Eve; she was lonely, she was desperate, she was counting on him.

Serena tugged on his hand, she was leading him into a small antechamber. It was completely empty.

She turned to face him and stood, completely silently,

He was confused, why had she brought him here? He opened his mouth to speak, not even sure of what he was going to say but she held up a hand to silence him

"Don't talk. Listen. I know that's hard for you but . . . try."

He flinched, the echo of his plea to her brought back the desperation of that day.

"When I was little girl" she started, Dan was mildly surprised, he'd expected accusations of emotional abandonment, a few screamed questions about his night with Blair, perhaps some hate sex, not a trip through Serena's childhood. "I never saw two people make it work. My mom . . . the slightest thing and it was a break-up or a divorce. You dad and my mom, they won't be forever. I thought they would be, I though they would be different, but I've been watching them these past few weeks and they're not. They think they love each other but they don't, they're just reaching for something that's gone. I give it a year. You and me though. We _are_ different, we're the real deal, we're forever. I'm sorry I let it get to this stage. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I wouldn't try. I didn't know how to try. But I love you." She had said all of this very quickly and she stopped suddenly, Dan could see the blush spreading up her neck.

Silence.

"Try. Try and I'll forgive everything. Try and I'm yours." She spoke his words, she remembered them perfectly after all this time.

"I can't." he said, and she knew he was telling her the truth.


	13. Thirteen A Year Ago Serena

**Thirteen. Serena. A Year Ago. Exactly.**

**(Just a bit of fluff, but I'm really stressed at the moment with exams – hence the Donne quotes, I'm thinking too much about it !– and also just because DS are so great together!)**

Serena suddenly became aware of the sun on her back, and a moment later that she was awake, she turned round so that she was facing Dan, he was sitting up in bed reading despite the fact it was only seven in the morning. Dan never, ever slept late, he could stay in bed for hours, but he always woke up at seven o'clock on the dot. Serena rested her head on his stomach; he took his idle and began to play with her hair absent-mindedly. She loved the feeling of the sun on her back; she gave a little laugh, remembering when they were first together. Dan had been nervous about sex and had tried to distract her by talking about getting blinds in his room.

"You should get some blinds . . . or a clapper." She told him.

He smiled, remembering his words from so long ago and put his book down. They sat like that for a while, silent and content, before Serena reached over and picked up his book.

"Donne? I love him."

He looked down incredulously "Really?"

She made a mock offended face, deep down she was a little offended really. "Yeah! You think you and Blair are the only ones smart enough to understand it?"

"I was going to give this to you just before I left actually but since you've found it I guess there's no time like the present. Here," he passed her the book open at a particular page. "Stanza six to nine."

She read the part he had indicated out loud.

_Our two soules therefore which are one,_

_Though I must goe endure not yet_

_A breach, but an expansion,_

_Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate._

_If they be two, they are two so_

_As stiffe twin compasses are two,_

_Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show_

_To move, but doth, if th'other doe._

_And though it in the center sit,_

_Yet when the other far doth rome,_

_It leanes, and hearkens after it,_

_And growes erect, as it comes home._

_Such wilt thou be to mee, who must_

_Like th'other foot, obliquely runne:_

_Thy firmnes makes my circle just,_

_And makes me end where I begunne._

She put the book down, and became aware that she was almost crying. He sat up abruptly.

"Did you hate it that much?" He joked, he hated it when she was upset. She didn't respond, she pulled him close and rested her face on his neck, breathing him in.

"I don't want you to go."

He stroked her hair. Then unexpectedly she quoted an earlier part of the poem, he was amazed, he hadn't expected her to have understood it, let alone known it before and loved it so much she knew it off by heart.

"_So let us melt, and make no noise,_

_No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,_

'_Twewr prophanation of our joyes_

_To tell the layetie of our love._"

She paused.

"I've been reading you books when you were in the shower for a while now."

He laughed, he had been wondering why his books kept turning up in strange places, he had just assumed that Vanessa had been borrowing them without asking.

He pulled back before leaning in to kiss her. "Let's go out for breakfast."

Serena dressed differently in Brooklyn. She kept her Brooklyn clothes at the loft, in two drawers of Dan's dresser, she didn't need any more space . . . she didn't even wear make-up here.. It was true that he'd first noticed the glamorous UES Serena, but he'd fallen in love with this one. She got out the shower, and ran into Jenny's room in Dan's towel knocking lightly on the door. Jenny was already up and on her sewing machine, making some kind of bustier. She smiled wordlessly and handed a dripping Serena her hairdryer.

"Thank you, I swear I'll get my own!"

Jenny put her headphones back on, smiling and waved a hand to Serena to let her know it was fine.

Serena put her heels, dress and fancy underwear from last night in her bag, and pulled out a pair of ripped denim shorts, a t-shirt, a cardigan and some flat sandals. It was unbelievably hot and Serena could feel the sweat on her back as she dried her hair in her underwear. Dan came out of the shower fully dressed, he hadn't bothered shaving and the stubble on his face was thick and dark, he was wearing an ancient wife beater with a check shirt pulled on loosely and unbuttoned on top. They started chatting as they took each others hands casually and walked down the street to a place they normally went to for breakfast . . . NOT the café Vanessa used to work at! Looking at them now, no-one would have guessed who Serena was, what world they were a part of, they looked like a normal pair of kids in love. They looked like themselves.

Serena loved being here with Dan, she loved the fact that no-one thought they were a mismatched couple like everyone on the UES did. She wished that she could live like this forever. She had put the idea to him of her moving to New Haven with him, but he'd said no, because she needed to focus on her career. And he was right. But she had seen the self-control it had taken for him to not ask her to come away with him after all and she loved him all the more for it.

They had reached the café, he pulled her chair out for her, she smiled and sat down.


	14. Fourteen Serena Present

**Fourteen. Serena. Present.**

Serena had been drinking for quite a while now, she'd bypassed fluttery, giggly and melancholy, and reached her least attractive stage of drunkenness, she was pissed off. Rufus, who had never known the drunken Serena, didn't know this, Eric, Lily, Nate, Dan, Blair and Chuck were all giving her a wide berth because of the look on her face. Rufus sat down next to her, a big smile on his face.

"Great reception, huh?"

Serena looked at him, she'd been thinking of the weekends she'd spent at the loft with Dan, when they read and talked together.

"You and my mom."

"What about us honey?" He wasn't looking at her, if he had been he could have seen how she was looking at him, she looked like she wanted to kill him.

"_So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past._"

He looked at her, he would've expected the quote from his son, not Serena, "That's Gatsby isn't it?" he asked, confused.

"**That's** what I think of you and my mom." She got up and staggered away into the hotel lobby.

She sat down on a sofa in a quiet corner; she'd picked up a vodka tonic from a passing waiter as she came over and gulped it down greedily now. She felt it being lifted quietly from her hands, looking up she saw Dan standing above her, drinking the rest of her vodka. She stood up suddenly and immediately regretted it, she swayed and almost fell. Irritatingly Dan held her up. The minute she trusted herself to remain standing without his help she shook his hands off.

"What are you doing here?" The alcohol had hit her hard in the last few minutes she could hear herself slurring, but she honestly didn't care.

He didn't answer at first, but merely considered her carefully. "I don't know really."

She hit him on his shoulder; it was hard for her to hit him with any real force because he was standing so close. She kept hitting him about the head and neck and shoulders. He didn't try to protect himself from her drunken blows, but closed his eyes. She found that her face was wet and that she was crying as she hit him, she felt herself being pulled close to him, she tried to fight him off weakly but ended up sobbing on his shoulder leaving a trail of tears and mascara and mucus on the shoulder of his white shirt. He kissed her forehead and the gesture reminded her of the morning when she had told him about that night with Georgina and Pete. It only made her cry harder and clutch at him desperately. They stood like that for a while until she felt herself dropping off to sleep. She had the vague feeling of being picked up and carried like she had been at the Debutante Ball and the rush of cooler air over her bare shoulders and legs, followed by the staleness of a cab.

Then. Nothing.


	15. Fifteen Dan

**Fifteen. Dan.**

Driving Jenny to the airport felt almost natural for Dan. It was five o'clock in the morning, she was catching an early flight to London. They were chatting, not a lot but they were still doing it. Jenny didn't think he should leave Yale, he knew it, but she was holding her advice in. He was grateful.

There was a lull in the conversation while they were still 20 miles from the airport. Jenny took a deep breath and then said something in a voice that was meant to be nonchalant.

"I saw Serena sleeping in your room this morning." She paused. "in your pyjamas."

Dan tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Lily and Rufus had left after the reception, he hadn't said goodbye to them. He put Serena to sleep in his bed then sat and read next to her. He'd never seen her in such a state ever. But he knew how it must've looked.

"Dan . . ." Jenny started, " . . . I know you love her . . . " Dan didn't try to deny it " . . . but you can't do it."

"I'm not."

She turned to look at him and raised her eyebrow. "Just wait, Dad and Lily'll be over I in a year tops and then you can do whatever you want but please just don't do this."

Dan could feel anger boiling up inside him, but he'd never lost his temper with Jenny, and he wasn't about to start now. "I'm not."

She considered him carefully, and seemed to accept it. "Okay."

He felt a question rising in his throat. "Did you see Gossip Girl?"

Jenny shifted uncomfortable, she had been hoping to avoid this subject, it confused her and she had no idea whether to believe it or not. "Is it true?"

"Of course."

Jenny sat back in the car seat and exhaled through her nose, Dan looked at her through the corner of his eye. People weren't reacting in the way he had thought they would. Had he given it any thought, he would have thought that Jenny would hit him with a barrage of question, maybe shouted at him a little.

Jenny's phone buzzed, she flipped it open with lightening speed then raised hey eyebrows.

"It's out about Nate and Vanessa."

"You knew?"

"I made her dress for the wedding, she tried to hide it but . . . please!" They both laughed a little. "I was pretty shocked at first but I don't know, they seem ready."

Dan shrugged, he felt bad for how he'd treated Vanessa.

They had reached the airport.

---

Dan had made his mind up in the airport about what he was going to do, his resolve was hardening with every passing minute. He was going to tell Serena how he felt, he was going to apologise to Vanessa . . . and Blair, he was going to try. When he got back to the apartment he got out his cell and tried to call Vanessa, but she didn't answer. He tried Serena. No answer. Blair? Nothing.


	16. Sixteen Nate

**Sixteen. Nate.**

Nate came into the flat with the Doritos Vanessa had been craving at 10 o'clock on the night of the wedding. He knew immediately that something was terribly wrong, there was a humid staleness and a suffocating stillness in the air that caught in his throat and when he walked into the bedroom, he found Vanessa on the bed still and wet from the shower in her underwear, the tiny bump protruding slightly. He said her name and shook her a little, her eyes were unfocused and she said his name a few times, the words catching in her throat and making her choke a little, he felt her pulse, it was erratic.

---

He carried her into the ambulance, things seemed to be rushing around him, he couldn't hear, he felt a dampness on his leg and looked down to see the paramedic pushing huge wads of gauze between her legs to try and soak up the cloud of darkness that blossomed there. Nates throat went dry he reached up to her face and stroked it and was aware of his lips and tongue moving though he could hear nothing nor be sure of why they were doing this. Her eyelids fluttered and he saw her lips shape his name.

---

6 hours later, Nates' hearing had returned if only a little, the doctor's voices echoed and seemed almost inaudible. He caught parts of what they said. They asked where her parents were. They were travelling down from Vermont as they spoke. They told him it had been a long hard surgery. Vanessa would be fine. It transpired that Vanessa's pregnancy had been doomed from the beginning. Her fallopian tube had burst. They had lost the tube. They didn't tell him if they had lost the baby until he asked and he knew from their looks the unspoken answer. They were sorry, they said. He sat down next to Vanessa; the only movement was the steady and slow rise and fall of her chest. He picked up her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips and felt his throat thicken. He sat like that for awhile until he felt his phone buzz in his pocket; he flipped it open and found a Gossip Girl blast there, congratulating him and Vanessa.

Nate dropped his phone onto the floor, put his head in his hands and wept.

---

Nate heard his phone ring. It was Dan. Nate told him where he was.

"I'm on my way."


	17. Seventeen Serena

**Seventeen. Serena.**

Serena's phone buzzed next to her and woke her up. The relatively quiet noise made her head pound and split. She tried to read the blast but the light of her phone screen made her eyes sting. She closed them for a moment, and then tried again. The information registered vaguely with her.

She then took in her surroundings. She felt her body and was relieved to realise she was wearing Dan's pyjamas. The smell made her want to curl up in a little ball right where she was and go back a year and change everything.

Dan's room was practically identical to the guest room, except there were cardboard boxes dotted about the room and tiny mementoes of his life. A well-worn copy of _Gravity's Rainbow _sat on the bedside table next to two paracetamol and a glass of water. Thank you! She took the pills and waited for the pounding in her head to subside a little before she snooped. She opened the nearest box, and gasped. His stories were there, and there were dozens of them, coffee-stained, ripped out of spiral notebooks, pushed haphazardly into a file. She put them to the side and pulled out a smaller box, opening it she found photos. Dan and Jenny in the bath as babies, Dan and Jenny playing in the park as children, the Humphreys at Christmas, Dan and Vanessa laughing drunkenly with a group of their Brooklyn friends in a smoky bar from before Serena knew them, Dan and Serena. These last photos were a little more worn, and at the bottom she found a set of cuttings in a plastic envelope she had once given him. They were the pictures from the society pages that they were in. Them looking awkward together at Bart Bass's brunch together almost three years ago, him carrying her at the debutante ball, them talking with their heads close in the background of a picture of a dinner, various dinners with them holding hands and looking like they'd rather be anywhere else, dancing at Lily's wedding to Bart Bass (Serena almost crying, Dan looking like the sun would never rise again), dancing at the Snowflake Ball in the background, countless more dinners, Senior Prom after he bailed her out of jail and finally kissing in their graduation gowns. She looked over the images of them together that thousands of people had glanced over or even studied. She realised that anyone looking at all these pictures would have thought they had been consistently together. She suddenly realised that throughout everything, over the last three years, he had been the only constant in her life, he had been her "_fix'd foot_." She started and was hit with the massive comprehension that she had not been there for him as he had been for her. She had been his fix'd foot, but then she had faltered, and, flipping through the photos, tears streaming down her cheeks she grasped why he had ended up so far from where he had begun.

She turned to the file of stories. Their titles were nearly all dates and they were filed chronologically, she picked up the most recent and realised that he hadn't written in six months. She looked at the date again "31.12.09." It was Blair's story. Could she read it? The first paragraph consisted of two words – "loneliness" and "desperation" – she gasped, comprehending that these were the factors that had crashed Dan and Blair together. She closed the file. She didn't need to read on, nor did she want to.


	18. Eighteen Chuck

**Eighteen. Chuck**

Chuck and Blair sat in the back of the limo, their sacred space.

"Please . . . Chuck . . . " she was begging now. "Look at me."

"I don't want to." Chuck knew he was being childish, he didn't want to be like this what he wanted more than anything was for Blair to hold him. He would never admit that though. He suddenly realised that Blair was holding him, he shrugged her off and heard her give a little moan of sadness.

"Just tell me this – why?" he asked her, he was having a hard time with this one little detail.

When Blair spoke, her voice was harder than he had ever heard it, "The same reason why you slept with Vanessa."

He turned to look at her at last but her eyes were blazing into him

"Did I hurt you that badly?"

Her body crumpled momentarily before strengthening once more, she was pissed off now.

"Why must you make me spell everything out? Why must I always be the one who is transparent? This is humiliating! When you told me about you and Vanessa, I accepted that you felt in a way that I might never be able to fully comprehend. Can you not do the same for me?!" The torrent of words halted when Chuck said just four.

"You never told me."

She froze.

"That's the difference, Blair, you never told me."

She looked into his eyes, he was completely still and looking at her with an openness she had never experienced before. A tear slipped down his cheek. He made no attempt to wipe it away or hide it and this, mot than anything, broke whatever fighting spirit Blair might have had left.

So quiet it was almost inaudible, "I'm sorry."

Without looking away from her, Chuck pressed a button and said "Drive."

They sat in silence together for a while, looking into each others eyes. Chuck spent a good five minutes working up his courage before inching his hand across the car seat and places it on top of Blairs'. He began t stroke her knuckle with his pinky. The tear that had slipped down his cheek was followed by another, and another, and across from his Blair began to cry quietly as well. Suddenly she pulled him close and held him and this time he didn't push her away

Chuck felt his phone ring in his pocket. He looked at the caller ID, it was Nate. He supposed he would have to face him sometime soon. He picked it up.

Nates voice was like he had never heard it before. He had heard it sad, brooding, confused (a lot), stoned but never this utter emptiness. Nate told Chuck where he was.

"Do you want me to come?"

"No. Just. Call my mom."

"Okay."

Nate hung up. Blair looked to Chuck quizzically, "Whats wrong?"

"Vanessa lost her baby."


	19. Nineteen Vanessa

**Nineteen. Vanessa.**

Vanessa was awake but still groggy, half-formed fears and thoughts and panics reeled maniacally in her head around a core of numbness she couldn't penetrate. She became aware of a tube in her throat and choked a little.

A movement at her hand told her she wasn't alone and she sensed Nate's presence. Her windpipe felt exposed and foreign as the tube was extracted from it, she found herself breathing for herself and realised what a burden it was to breathe, to live. And then . . .

Pain.

She had never known pain like it before, it didn't come in waves but in an unrelenting attack against her senses, beating her into submission. She lay for what could have been a moment but she was told later lasted an hour before she managed to get herself under control.

She opened her eyes once more and immediately felt Nate's hand brush her cheek.

She tried to speak, her throat hurt, she heard a croak and realised it was her. She tried again. "The baby?" Complete stillness followed, she knew the answer to her half-formed question and the pain seemed to sharpen for a moment before it was swallowed a dull numbness.

A voice. "Vanessa?" and in a moment a million memories came back to her with that voice. The door closing behind that voice echoed insider her head, she felt each of her hands being held by two different people. She heard their murmurs, Nate's explanations, he thought she was asleep, he told Dan the whole story, Vanessa bit her tongue to stop herself from crying out when she heard, Nate's sobs filled the silence. She felt the shift as Dan reached across to Nate uneasily and then she felt nothing more.

---

When Vanessa woke up again she could move. That was something. But she felt cloudy, that was the only way to describe it, she knew neither what she thought nor what she felt, indeed she wasn't sure if she still did think or feel or if a part of her had been ripped out her body along with she and Nate's failed creation. She and Nate did not speak. He was angry, she didn't know why, she wasn't sure that she wanted to know. She suspected that he blamed her; she knew that she certainly did.

Dan popped in and out of the room and their lives over the next twenty four hours. Vanessa heard Nates mother's voice outside the room once but Nate didn't let her in. The Grandfather (as Vanessa had come to think of him as) also arrived, didn't ask about Vanessa's welfare but expressed his condolences to Nate in a way that made it sound like he was congratulating him.

And all the while Vanessa tried to piece together the random snatches of vague emotions together to work out how she _felt_.

---

The next morning, she told him, "I'm sorry."

He considered her for a moment. "I know."

"I didn't mean it to happen."

"I don't blame you." But there was emptiness in his voice that broke Vanessa.

"You don't?"

"The doctors say it started off like this."

"I know."

"It was always meant to be like this."

Vanessa recoiled, "So it's neither of our faults." He continued. "It's just how it was meant to be for us."

Vanessa wasn't sure that she fully understood what Nate was trying to tell her.

"What do you mean?"

He gave her a withering look and left.


	20. Twenty Serena

**Twenty. Serena.**

Serena had been out all day trying to find Dan; she had been calling him every five minutes and leaving messages until she had filled up his inbox. She figured he just didn't want to be found.

Maybe he regretted taking care of her, maybe he had been mocking her, getting her hopes up and sitting in some dodge bar right now with some other girl, laughing at the thought of her. With his phone switched off. A lump constructed itself in her throat, she felt as if she might choke or suffocate on it. She went into her room and stopped. Nate was sitting on her bed; he looked up as she came in but made no move to greet her. Serena's phone buzzed and she read about what had happened. She sat down next to him.

"I'm really sorry Nate."

He didn't say anything to her but instead leaned in and began to kiss her roughly, trapping her by holding her arms tight to her side, crushing her in a bear hug. She managed to pull herself away, wiping her mouth hastily.

"Nate! What the –"

Then she saw him, the look on his face "Please." He begged her. "Just once, just please."

He leaned in again and he began to kiss her once more, after a minute or two she kissed back reluctantly until she felt wetness on her face and Nate's teeth exposed as he sobbed between kisses. He tried to kiss her neck but instead broke down into noisy tears on her shoulder as she stroked his hair, and found herself crying as well – for all that Nate had lost and for all that she had thrown away.

---

Nate was gone. Dan was gone. Blair was gone. Emotion shook Serena physically. She sat alone on the side f he bed where Nate had left her, apologising briefly and averting his eyes from her tear-stained face.

She was distracted from her own misery for a moment as the lift doors opened into the apartment and Serena heard voices shouting. Lily and Rufus. Why were they back? She left her room. She went into the kitchen where they stood.

"Hey guys."

The pair ignored her, glaring at each other from opposite ends of the room, stuck in a stalemate.

"Why are you back?" Speaking in this light-hearted way made her feel better, Lily and Rufus' misery made her feel better. She felt a bit better.

"Paternity hearing." Rufus muttered. Lily buried her head in her hands. Serena smiled a little, she knew she shouldn't smile at her mothers anguish but the honest truth was that she hadn't liked her mother all that much since her love for Rufus had torn her away from Dan.

"I thought that was a _mere formality_. That it was just a part of Andrews's adoption contracts?" After his discovery of his real parents, Andrew had decided to stay with Lily and Rufus; they had been working on adopting him from his old parents, who were desperate to do anything to make Andrew happy.

"Serena please." Lily begged her, but Rufus who was radiating hostility obviously saw this as an opportunity to start something with Lily again, he turned to Serena.

"Well Serena, "he started, "It would have been a _mere formality_ it was just meant to be an insurance policy to make sure we really were Andrews's genetic parents. We really believed we were. Well, that was only half true. Wasn't it Lil?" He screamed the last question across the kitchen table. He quickly adopted a jovial tone once more. "As it turns out Serena, you mom isn't exactly a one-guy-king-of-a-gal, turns out that Andrew's daddy is probably either some guy named Klaus or Slash. Imagine my surprise, when we land in Barbados to find about a dozen massages from the doctor to come back immediately. Imagine my surprise when I find out that this child, that Lil here has guilt tripped me about and made me believe is m long lost son, isn't even mine."

And with that he stormed out the flat. Lily lifter her head and cried out "Rufus!" feebly.

Serena had to hold back a smile. Lily really had this coming.

"Classy, mom, real classy."


	21. TwentyOne Dan

**TwentyOne. Dan.**

_Okay, I haven't posted in awhile, a long while, but I've had exams, and I've been totally stuck, still feeling a bit stuck, any suggestions would be really welcome! Thanks to everyone who reviews and follows, it's a real morale-booster! _

For the first time since he'd got back to New York, Dan went out that night, there was a bar in Brooklyn that he used to go to with Vanessa and their old friends. He thought of the bars Serena used to take him out to occasionally with the iced lights that changed colour and the cocktails and the conceptually furniture, there wasn't a lot to this bar, some booths, a bar with a few half—broken stools, a jukebox and a couple of pool tables, but it was his favourite. Even the memory of taking Serena here on their first date couldn't spoil it for him. He went up to the bar and ordered Scotch, he tried to pay Sam, the bartender, but found that some girl had already paid for him. She came across and sat on the stool next to him. She was short, maybe 5'4 at a push and she had thick dark eyebrows that defined her face, her hair was curly, tied up in an unruly knot at the back of her head and her body was neat like a shell. She was the complete opposite of Serena.

They talked for a while, she flirted but he didn't really reciprocate, he never really did. She bought him a couple of drinks and made it clear she'd like to give him more than a few tequila shots in a smoky bar. Dan considered this, he'd done this sort of thing before and he knew this girl didn't expect anything more than tonight from him.

"So, d'you wanna come outside for a smoke?" she asked him, her expressive eyebrows rising and dancing.

"Yeah, Laura, sure."

She stopped dead and laughed, "I'm Leia!"

Dan's stomach twisted like he'd just been punched in the gut. He made his excuses and the left, he felt dirty and sleazy and cheap and more like Chuck Bass than he'd ever thought he would. He felt all wrong; he wanted to feel like himself again. He tried to call a taxi, shit, he was wasted, he sat down on the concrete steps of an old brownstone and got his phone out. _15 missed calls: 1 – Dad, 14 – Serena._ He dialled for Carlos, his drinking buddy from college. The phone had almost rung out by the time Carlos picked up.

"Shit, Carlos, I fucked it all up properly this time. Everything's all fucked up."

There was a pause, Dan could hear Janice asking Carlos who was on the phone. Janice and Carlos had been on and off for moths until Carlos finally gave up sleeping around and decided to be with her, he had urged Dan to do the same.

"You're wasted Dan."

Dan laughed, "I know, right? But that's not the problem, man, I can't fix it!"

"Look Dan, I'm kinda busy at the moment, can I call you back?"

Pause.

"Sure, sure whatever man, get back to Janice. I'll be okay." But Carlos had put the phone down before Dan had finished.

He got up and looked for a taxi. All his friends had got it together, it was just him left now, even Chuck Bass was less fucked up than him. How did he end up the dysfunctional one? Wait, he knew, Serena van der Woodsen, and in that moment, he wished she had never come back from Connecticut and that she had just left him to being himself.

He climbed into the cab and slurred out the address of the apartment. He didn't want to go there but he didn't know where else to go, he had no-one and no place. He should have gone home with that Leia/Laura girl; at least he'd have had something to do for a couple of hours. He pulled out a cigarette, he never used to smoke.

"No smoking." Said the cabbie, Dan offered him a smoke and he took one without saying anything more about it.

"Rough night?" the cabbie asked him.

Dan thought about it. The drunken cab drive home was a new experience for him. He wasn't proud of the fact that he had almost never gone out drinking without picking some girl up. Countless nameless, faceless girls, all melting into one girl who was infinitely inferior to Serena. Josie, Evie, Anne, Isobel, Claire, Marta, Bailey, he could remember some names and he could remember some faces, but he couldn't put one to the other even if he tried.

"Pretty much."

He realised with a start that Blair was one of these girls. Granted, he could remember everything about that night, her name, her face, her body and very intimate detail of the sex . . . which had been very drunken, occasionally fumbling and overpoweringly desperate. If he was honest, the act of sleeping with Blair hadn't meant anything to him; it was how sleeping with Blair had affected him and Serena that meant something to him.

They had arrived, he got out the car paying the cabbie and walked into the elevator surprisingly steadily - he wasn't a lightweight by any standards – and waited to be delivered to the apartment. When the doors opened, he saw his father's suitcases and felt a slight twinge of surprise. He had almost made it to his room when Serena came out of hers. She could tell how drunk he was, she knew him well enough for that. She pushed him into his room and followed him inside.

He sat down in the armchair in the corner of his room, smoked another cigarette, watched her pace the room.

He could hear footsteps coming down the stairs, he opened his mouth to ask Serena but she put her finger to her lips and wrapped her long, black cardigan tighter around her, though it wasn't cold.

Dan heard the elevator doors open and close, punctuated only by a long, loud sigh and the slight *bing!* of the machinery.

"Was that Rufus?" Dan asked her, he rarely called Rufus "dad" any more, he was too embittered and detached, it would have made Rufus feel better about what he had done for Dan to continue addressing him as his parent, as a friend. Dan didn't want to do anything that might relieve Rufus of his guilt.

"Yeah." Serena said, hushing him again, as they heard another pair of footsteps, in heels. They heard the elevator doors open again, and close again.

"And that was my mom." She said in answer to Dan's silent question, she's going to stay with my Aunt Carol in Miami for a little while, until the buzz dies down."

"The buzz?"

"Didn't Rufus call you, he tried to call Jenny and I assumed he would have tried you as well . . . "

Dan cut her off early, "Why aren't they in Barbados?"

Serena was a little stricken, Dan never interrupted her. "Andrew's not your brother."

Dan didn't fully understand, to be honest, he was still pretty wasted, and was having difficulty focusing on anything or anyone.

"Where is he?" Dan asked her. She looked blankly at him, of course that was just like Serena, she never thought of the person who would be the most affected by an event, only the person who affected her the most, it was one of the few things Dan truly hated about her. "Andrew."

"Oh, em . . . staying with a friend at dorms in NYU I think . . . but I thought this meant . . . I dunno . .. but I mean . . ."

But Serena had stopped talking, Dan was dialling a number into his phone, the other line had picked up and he was speaking in a surprisingly composed manner.

"Hey Andrew, man, it's me, Dan . . . yeah I know I'm sorry man . . . look, you don't have to leave the apartment . . . I know but they're gone . . . yeah, it's your home now too though . . . if you're sure . . . call me if you need anything . . . it doesn't matter . . . whatever . . . okay, I'll talk to you soon man, later, bye."

Dan flipped the phone shut, Serena was glaring at him, her hands were on her hips, her feet spaced far apart, she was openly aggressive.

"What the hell Dan?"

Dan was utterly confused, he raised an eyebrow.

"Rufus and Lily were the reason we couldn't be together, and now that they're apart the first thing you freaking think of is Andrew, what the fuck does he have to do with anything."

Dan was pissed off now, and pissed, so he decided that for once he was going to let Serena have it.

"Can you for once in your life think of someone other than yourself? Andrew just found out that his father isn't his father and his mother lied to him, this last year had been totally fucked up for him, Christ, we can't imagine what he's going through right now. So I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for being concerned for someone who might need help! And Rufus and Lily aren't why we weren't together, we broke up because you wouldn't try and you left me. And don't say you _couldn't_ try, I'm so fucking sick of hearing you say that, you gave up. You were always going to give up when it got too hard. I should have known that. You can't even help it, it's who you are."

She stormed out of the room, and Dan went to bed. He didn't have anything more to say to her.


	22. TwentyTwo Blair

**TwentyTwo. Blair.**

_Thanks again to everyone who reviews and follows, it a real incentive to update quickly! That and the fact that I finally finished my higher exams yesterday! Once again thanks and reviews are really appreciated. _

Blair woke up in her own bed alone. She went downstairs; Chuck was leant over the kitchen counter eating cereal in the exact spot where she had once stuffed herself with pie gluttonously because of him one Thanksgiving. Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she leant against the doorway smiling as he looked up; he abandoned his paper and came over to kiss her.

"I've got to be in the office today." Since his eighteenth birthday, Chuck had been CEO of Bass Inc, it had taken him a while but he had finally settled into the role and everyone - the board, his advisors, the business columnists – agreed that he was a natural. Bass Inc was more prosperous than ever, and Chuck Bass was richer than ever, a member of the most elite of clubs occupied only by Russian oil billionaires and totalitarian dictators who mooched off their people – Chuck Bass, at nineteen years old was one of the world's richest men.

Blair found this indescribably sexy.

Blair nodded, one of the downsides of dating the youngest billionaire businessman in the world was that you had to live around his schedule, fit in with him, work around him. She didn't mind particularly, but on days like these she missed him

He was already dressed, black suit made just for him, a light purple shirt and a dark purple tie, patterned by tiny indentations. Blair had picked out this particular tie for him and she straightened it as she pulled his head down to kiss him full on the lips before he left.

She showered, she got dressed, she focused on making herself look gorgeous and when the ritual was complete – it had only taken a half hour, Blair was well-practised – she found herself quite unsure of what she was going to do that day. She suddenly realised why society women drank; she couldn't imagine living like this every day of her life.

She mooched about the house, she thought about calling Penelope or Iz, and going shopping, but her heart wasn't in it, and she didn't feel like fending off barbed comments about her and Dan.

6 months ago, it felt like a lifetime, she could still remember every detail perfectly clearly, painfully clearly. She wished she couldn't, that it could just become some burry blunder in the middle past that she could shrug off as a very drunken mistake. But being able to remember every nook of his body and his every touch and movement. _That_ made everything much harder. Especially since the feelings that came forward when she thought of that night weren't always entirely unpleasant. Her phone rang as if on cue and she saw the caller ID immediately and a shiver ran through her. She dithered for a moment, then picked up the phone.

"Blair."

"Cabbage Patch."

"Look could you stop calling me that – it's getting a bit old now."

She sighed, she hated the fact that he'd grown balls, and as that exact thought entered her mind, she clenched herself inwardly and blushed – remembering.

"What do you want Humphrey?" She snapped down the line.

She heard him hiss in pain – could that be a hangover? At – she looked to the clock – one o'clock?

"Shit. Nice. You drunk-dialling again?"

"I need to talk to you. I need to straighten things out. I need to sort my life out." He seemed to say these last two sentences more to himself than to her and she sensed that he still wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing.

"We can't." She inhaled deeply. "Me and Chuck . . . we're together again . . . for good I think . . . I know . . . I can't risk anything . . . can you tell me over the phone?"

Pause.

"I don't want to hurt you."

Blair rolled her eyes, she remembered the last time a Humphrey had told her that and prepared herself mentally.

"I'm ready."

Pause.

"It didn't mean anything to me."

It didn't hit her immediately. She said okay. He asked her how she felt. She said she was still figuring it out. She was. About everything. They said goodbye. She went upstairs and watched a few episodes of the Gilmore Girls.

It still didn't hit her.

Chuck came back. They had dinner together. They watched a film. They made love. They had sex. Chuck fell asleep and Blair sroked his hair for a while.

It still didn't hit her.

She got up. She got ready. She went shopping alone and ended up in a book store browsing. She picked up a copy of _The Wasp Factory _by Iain Banks. Dan had recommended it to her once when she was out for lunch with him and Serena. It was macabre and dark and Scottish and made her feel a little sick sometimes and she loved it. She read the first chapter and put it back. She left the shop.

It hit her.


	23. TwentyThree Serena

_Okay, so I know I haven't update in a while even though I've finished all my exams and have nothing to do now . . . but I'm updating now. Though it's all a bit shit so please try to bear with me! Thanks to everyone who review and reads - your review make me feel better - so REVIEW!!_

Serena woke up panicked. Her breath came ragged and for a moment she couldn't grasp where or who she was.

But then her fingers slid across the Egyptian cotton and the bespoke air conditioner slammed into her nostrils and her tongue, so strong she could taste it, and she knew exactly where and who she was.

And she was disappointed.

For a moment she wasn't Serena, she didn't have a name, she was just a thing, and she had felt free in that half-conscious, confused moment.

She became very aware of her breathing, and felt the slow move of her diaphragm and the physicality of it made her feel whole and simple and complete. She tried to feel her body again. She realised that she had become wholly detached from herself, that she had forgotten what she was, and how insignificant she was.

The feeling of being superhuman suddenly grasped her. She brought Dan forward from the back of her mind where he nestled - nettling and pricking her thoughts – and she thought of what she had told him. How meaningless and ridiculous she was.

Her throat thickened and felt like it was clogged with bitter honey and as she tried to clear it, her stillness was shaken and she shook off all she had felt in those moments.

-----

Bendels brought her no joy; she bought compulsively surrounding herself with salespeople with pink lipstick that didn't suit their complexions and ill-fitting navy blue jackets. Still she bought. For something to do more than anything. The questions they asked her made her nervous so she made it clear with her eyes that she didn't want to converse with them and just bought.

She was trying on shoes, and as she slid the heel from her foot she felt the tiny veins across the lower sides of her feet which stuck out lightly and made her skin look like paper and momentarily the blood pulsed violently and persistently against her fingertips and she was overcome with that feeling of physicality once more.

Her voice came out shaky.

"Put it all back."

The sales assistants looked at her with wide smiles and furious, commission-aware eyes.

"Put it all back. I don't want any of it."


	24. TwentyFour Blair

Bendels brought her no joy. Usually its warm light and the cashmere that tickled her fingertips comforted her, made her believe in a fairytale corporate world where everything was clean and right. But not today. The lights seemed harsh and cold and material scratched at her mercilessly. She was about to leave when she saw her.

Shit.

Serena.

She stared and darted behind a perfume stand to watch her. The gaping wound in her heart was salted a little and she felt it push her flesh a little wider.

She could see why he wanted her, Blair had never really understood why Dan of all people would want Serena - in all her perfection and glamour, but now she finally saw. He wanted her for the things that had made everyone else turn away.

As she removed the shoe she was trying on, Blair saw her feet, she had never looked at Serena's feet before, they looked sore, all red welts across the soles and popping veins. They were her humanity, her mortality. They showed her persistence. For some reason Blair saw those welts and thought of slashes across arms, of self-inflicted pain. She briefly considered the idea that her friend might be just as screwed up as the rest of them.

Serena raised her head a little, she seemed to be inspecting those feet and Blair looked at the tiny lines across her face. Laughter lines that Blair was terrified of having herself, and Blair considered that they might not be laughter lines after all. They looked like scars, like battle wounds to Blair, and Blair imagined every single one being etched into Serena for every time anyone, indeed Serena herself, had let Serena down.

And Blair knew why he would always love Serena but never her – because Serena was Serena, he couldn't help it; he loved all of her and knew all of her without her having to show him herself.

With spreading shame, Blair realised that he had noticed things about Serena after nineteen years of companionship that Dan Humphrey had probably noticed within nineteen minutes of their first date.

Serena finally looked up and brown and grey met for a moment before Serena saw that Blair had finally truly seen her and averted her eyes quickly.

And with that Blair fled the scene.


	25. TwentyFive Vanessa

**TwentyFive. Vanessa.**

_**Sorry, it's taken me months! I don't even have an excuse, I'm sorry to whoever is still reading this.**_

It had been two weeks since her miscarriage now. She had been out of hospital for one. She couldn't remember much of her time there. The smell of linoleum, Nate's lips pressed hard up against her fingers and a numb, dull, still ache where there used to be life and movement.

Her mother took her home. She didn't let her argue, though she tried to, saying she'd go back to the flat. But her mother gave her a shrewd look and asked her where Nate was. Vanessa's mouth opened shut like a fish out of its tank.

"You're nineteen."

She tried to argue.

"You're nineteen."

She couldn't argue with that.

-----

She'd always hated it here. Her parents had always told her the town they'd be moving to was arty and alternative, but it wasn't the city and Vanessa was in love with the city and he couldn't bear to be parted from it. Some times she felt like she herself was a part of the city itself. The city was home.

More than that, her people were there. The last time she had sat at this window, she had been pining for Dan. Now she pined for Nate and she gave herself a little exhalation that was a bitter laugh. If the sixteen year-old her could see her now. Moping over some trust-fund rich bitch who had knocked her up then left her. How stupid had she been? Not only had she believed him when he said he loved her, but she had trusted him, she had allowed herself to feel for him in return.

Now she was left picking up the pieces – well, she would be if she could bend over, which she still couldn't, the swelling and pain and bandages were still too thick for that.

She was desperately lonely. She half-considered calling Marcy, the clingy, hysterical girl who was the only person who had talked to Vanessa when she had lived here before. She was ashamed of letting the thought occur to her really.

What ever happened to self-reliance? Independence? Cynicism? The three pillars of her persona had come crashing down and she had been underneath when they did.

-----

Things had got really bad. She was at Taco Bell. She was eating meat. And non-Fairtrade products. She was drinking a fucking Coke for chrissake.

She thought to herself. "This is what he has reduced me to." Then she laughed at herself for being such a snob, but hey, she was who she was.

Her mother was sitting across the table, with a wholly unsavoury look on her face. She had been giving Vanessa whatever she wanted since the miscarriage and since she had to drive her everywhere, this was definitely a perk. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Vanessa raised an eyebrow at her.

"Polyester" her mother hissed, "You know how I hate the Wests over-use of man-made fibres."

-----

She was in her sweats, watching America's Next Top Model on her laptop, thank god she'd thought to bring it, Tyra Banks would have been the final straw for her parents.

The doorbell rang, she ignored it, let someone else bother, she was wallowing in self-pity. Quite comfortably, she might add. She could here a familiar voice that she couldn't quite place. Her heart stopped at the thought of Marcy but it was too deep. She sat up, wincing. The voices were a bit raised. She could hear her father trying to shut the door, finally slamming it on whoever was there. She shifted on her bed so that she could look out the window and saw broad shoulders and straight light brown hair.

"Stop!" she screamed. "Stop!" And she hit the window in frustration. She looked about frantically, she'd never make it down there in time, she could hear her parents calling up to her, they thought she was in pain, her fingers fumbled open the catch on the window and the hot air hit her, she stuck her head out as far as she could get it, the pain in her belly blazing and her leg cramping.

"Stop!"

The figure turned and her door opened, her mother was pulling her back from the window, she was half-on, half-off the bed, her mother was pleading with her to lie back down, that she'd rip her stitches, green eyes met grey, she pulled back against her mother, finally hitting her to get her to stop.

"Please stop!"

The figure took a few tentative steps back towards the house, Vanessa could feel her father fuming in the doorway, her mother dithering behind her, trying to think of a way to pick her up and pull her back without touching her stomach, he was still looking up at her as he shuffled towards the house, his feet dragging in the pebbles that marked the driveway, her eyes pleaded with him. The doorbell rang again, she had no idea why he was ringing it. No-one moved.

"Take me downstairs."

No-one moved.

"NOW!"

-----

She could hear her parents murmuring next door. She and Hate weren't actually speaking, just sitting at opposite ends of the sofa in the middle of the messy living room, twiddling their thumbs.

He was first to break the silence.

"I'm sorry about what I did to you."

She didn't say anything back. They were silent for a few more moments.

"When I found you that night," he paused, his eyes focused on a spot of the floor with burning intensity, "I was so scared." A great shudder racked his body. "I thought" Another shudder. He tried again. "I thought." His voice broke and he had to stop his fingers pressed into his eyes.

For the first time, she looked across to him and shifted to that her hand was on his forearm. He lifted his head from his hands and took hers in his. The instinctively knew what to do, and on their sides on the sofa, their foreheads pressed and eyebrows knitting together, whispering "I'll never leave you ever again" to each other over and over again.


End file.
